


Three Thieves and a Lie

by buriedbybooks



Series: Leverage-Warehouse 13 Crossovers [3]
Category: Leverage, Warehouse 13
Genre: 5+1 Things, Crossover, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Referenced tempoarary character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24736720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buriedbybooks/pseuds/buriedbybooks
Summary: Five times Steve was uncomfortable working with the Leverage crew, and one time he wasn’t.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Steve Jinks/Liam Napier
Series: Leverage-Warehouse 13 Crossovers [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034829
Comments: 6
Kudos: 79





	Three Thieves and a Lie

**Author's Note:**

> One of the five was a request from JustAsSweet (feel free to guess which one!). Thank you for getting me started on this one, my friend.

**1.**  
Well, this was awkward.

Steve glanced sideways at the man standing next to him. Eliot Spencer had his arms crossed and there was a slight scowl on his face. Together they were propping up a wall and staring at a room full of people, any one of whom may be in possession of an artifact. Claudia, Parker and Hardison were wandering around the room to talk with and question as many people as they could.

Normally, Steve would be walking around with Claudia, listening for the lies, but just as they’d arrived Claudia had waived him off to be surveillance. With Eliot Spencer. She had told Steve point blank that she thought they needed to talk.

Because Eliot Spencer seemed like one who talked.

And Steve wasn’t painfully shy around strangers.

Steve suppressed a sigh and found his eyes following Parker move through the crowd. She wasn’t stopping to chat with anyone the way that Hardison and Claudia were. Instead she’d just brush by people. Steve watched her, but even though he knew she was probably doing a series of lifts, he couldn’t see them.

Talk. What did one say to a man who had done and seen more terrible things than you could imagine? Play one-upmanship? Hey, Spencer, you know, I was dead. Really dead. Got resurrected by an artifact. Oh, you’ve never been dead? But you have a dark past where you killed how many people? Yeah, and that’s why you were considered the boogeyman at the ATF…

Nope. No. Not going to happen.

Small talk? So, how do you like being thieves? And that glare really is intimidating…

Again. No.

Steve concentrated on Parker, trying to identify exactly when and what she was lifting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t as easy as hearing a lie. It was because he was watching her so closely that he noticed a pattern--shortly after a lift, she’d shoot Eliot a grin.

Looking at the man beside him, Steve realized that he was amused. Eliot didn’t mind Parker’s antics.

“Put that back,” Eliot murmured. “You can’t keep it… I know it’s shiny, sweetheart... Don’t encourage her, Hardison…”

Steve blinked. The boogeyman from his training days was… Flirting. With his partners.

Eliot caught him staring and raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“No. Just surprised.”

The hitter smirked. “Even boogeymen sometimes have to be the voice of reason.”

Steve felt his face heat. “I didn’t say--”

“I’m aware of my reputa-- Dammit, Hardison, no! Stop.”

And listening to Eliot bicker with his partners was the death of his boogeyman status in Steve’s mind. If only he could record this for ATF…

Eliot glared at Steve, but it no longer had the same effect.

**2.**  
Steve did remember Sophie, and after having met the woman again, he now knew that she was offended by his odd talent. He remembered that listening to her was like an itch in his head, everything that came out of her mouth was a lie, but it was almost like she was so invested in the words that they were true to her. That interrogation had been horrifically uncomfortable; getting Sophie fuming mad had been the only amusement.

Hardison on a grift was actually worse. Steve hadn’t thought it possible, but Hardison had just started this conversation and already Steve wanted to cover his ears and back away.

The thing was that Hardison was _good_ at spinning out words and sounding sincere, but unlike Sophie, he didn’t submerge himself into the tale. The hacker knew he was lying, and could talk to people in a confusing mixture of truths and lies to get them to do exactly what he wanted. It was verbal whiplash for Steve. And even though he had teased Artie about lies not usually _hurting_ unless blatantly obvious, Steve found that lies probably could hurt. This tension, the stunning combination of truth and lie at such speed… Steve shook his head, unable to help himself, even knowing that it probably looked peculiar.

Thankfully, the mark wandered away a few moments later, so Steve got a reprieve. Looking back to the man beside him, Steve found Hardison studying him.

“You okay, man? You look a little off,” Hardison asked with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re… very good at lying.” Steve knew it wasn’t a real answer.

“Huh.” Hardison studied him for a moment. “So rumor is true, you really do hear lies.”

“Yes.”

“Well, better stopper up your ears; he’s coming back.”

Steve and Hardison turned back as the mark reentered the room, and Steve made a concerted effort to tune out the hacker.

He only partly succeeded. When they left and returned to the van, Hardison tossed him a bottle of acetaminophen.

“Take two. You’re looking all squinty and I don’t want Claudia to come after me.”

**3.**  
“You’re really not enjoying this, are you?” Claudia demanded once they got back to the B&B.

Steve sighed. The crew from Leverage Inc. was interesting, but it took energy to deal with all of them. Eliot Spencer, boogeyman with a soft spot for his partners. Alec Hardison, whose special style of lying gave Steve a headache. Parker, who…

“Why not?” a voice demanded from behind them.

Claudia and Steve both jerked in shock and spun around. Parker stood behind them.

...appeared out of nowhere like Mrs. Frederic.

“You just pulled a Mrs. Frederic. I thought Artie was the only other one who could do that,” Claudia said as she blew out a breath, her heart rate returning to normal faster than Steve’s.

Parker frowned at them and cocked her head to the side. “Mrs. Frederic. We never did find a picture of her. Or find out who she was.”

“Yeah, well, she’s like that. And she’s the only one allowed to sneak up on people, so don’t do it again while you’re here, okay?” Claudia’s voice was almost snippy, but the smile took the bite out of it.

Parker looked even more confused. “I wasn’t sneaking.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “Sure you weren’t. Just don’t give my partner a heart attack, okay?”

Parker narrowed her eyes at Steve, studying him. “He looks fine. Why aren’t you enjoying this?”

“Just a long day,” Steve said. It wasn’t quite a lie. It just wasn’t the whole truth.

“Claudia is right, you really are a bad liar.”

With that Parker passed them and made her way to the kitchen. Claudia laughed and made a face at Steve before following her.

Yeah. Having world-class thieves around was so much fun.

**4.**  
For the first hour, being crammed inside Lucille with Hardison and Claudia wasn’t so bad. They were both happily talking geek and Steve was able to sit back and keep working on trying to figure out what artifact they were chasing. Was it bigger than a breadbox?

Steve was brought out of his work by a sudden flurry of activity. Claudia was grabbing things and stuffing them into her satchel while Hardison was typing furiously.

“Claud?”

“Stay here and help Hardison. I’ve got to go get this to the others,” Claudia said as she pushed open the back door.

“Shouldn’t I go and you stay with the computers?” Steve demanded.

“Nope. You need to do your thing.”

Which left Steve sitting next to Hardison, listening through a headset to see if he could still detect lies remotely.

And not get distracted by the fact that Hardison’s shoulder kept brushing against his.

Liam. Remember, you and Liam are giving the long-distance thing a go.

Because that always ends well.

You like Liam. You have both decided to make this work.

Doesn’t mean that I don’t notice…

Steve swallowed and focused on the audio feeding through the headset. Breathing deeply, he ignored-- _ignored_ \--the man sitting beside him. He’d honestly thought that he was beyond this phase of being acutely aware of attractive men. Apparently, he could be as awkward as Claudia in stake out situations with strangers. Though, as long as he didn’t actually open his mouth, Steve thought he might be a little less awkward.

“Want some?”

Hardison held out a bag of green gummy frogs. The orange soda stayed firmly on the far side of the hacker’s keyboard.

“I’m good, thanks.” Steve was surprised at how uneven his voice sounded.

“Suit yourself. They’re good brain food for this kinda thing,” Hardison said with a smile, shrugging one shoulder.

Which made it brush against Steve’s again.

Coughing, Steve pulled off the headset. “I’m just going to get some air…”

He was just going to push open the van’s back door when it was yanked open from the outside and Steve almost fell into the man standing there. As it was, he was practically nose to nose with Eliot Spencer.

Who had the most intense eyes.

Steve mumbled something under his breath and was able to brush past the man. Sneak past, since he wasn’t about to try pushing him, and hurry away. Grumbling to himself, Steve told himself to quit being so dramatic and get over it.

In the back of his mind, Steve wondered what he’d messed up that karma was coming back to bite him in the ass so much this job.

**5.**  
Steve thought that working with Parker would be more comfortable than working alongside her partners. She was quiet, didn’t seem to require conversation.

What he hadn’t known before they sat down to go through the pile of documentation on potential artifacts that Artie had dumped on the dining room table, was that she liked to pick things apart. Including people.

And apparently he was more interesting than the files in front of them.

“You’re different than the others.”

Steve looked up and found Parker staring at him, eyes narrowed, head tilted slightly. He held her gaze, but she didn’t blink as frequently as most people. It was disconcerting. Steve wouldn’t have been surprised if she was trying to drill a hole into his head with her gaze. He looked away first, picking up the first folder and opening it. “I’m not that different.”

“You’re uncomfortable with us.”

And there was no way he was answering that one.

“Why? Is it because Eliot used to kill people?”

If he’d had liquid in his mouth, Steve knew he would have just done a spit-take. Had Parker just asked him that point blank?

“Hardison thinks it’s funny that you thought of Eliot as a boogeyman. But he’s not anymore.” Parker was frowning.

“I don’t think that Spencer is a boogeyman. When I was in training, we were told to watch out for him, that’s all.” And that the man was terrifying and deadly. Which he still was, but that wasn’t his line of work anymore. Steve did believe that.

“Hardison makes you squint.”

“He’s very good at lying. And talks fast.”

“And that makes you squint?”

That was another one he wasn’t going to answer. Steve turned back to the file in his hand and tried to read.

Parker did not get the hint.

“Do you really hear lies?”

“Yes.”

“And Hardison lies, so that makes you squinty. Did Sophie make you squinty?”

Steve sighed and looked at Parker. She was still staring at him. “Sophie almost believes her lies, Hardison doesn’t, so it’s actually different.”

Parker squinted at him. “Never team up with Sterling. I’d have to send Eliot after you both.” And then she started laying out folders in some sort of organization that made sense to her.

Steve decided not to ask for clarification about whoever Sterling was. He didn’t want to know.

**+1**  
Steve was standing out on the B&B patio, watching the sun set and drinking a beer. He appreciated the quiet. Claudia was out at open mic night at the coffeehouse, and had dragged Pete and Myka with her. Abigail and Artie were still at the Warehouse, finalizing the notes and finding the appropriate storage space for Clementine Hunter’s paintbrushes. Steve was unsure where the Leverage team had gone, or how they liked to decompress after a case. They had disappeared shortly after Pete and Myka had split off to take the artifact back to the Warehouse, and he and Claudia had driven them back to Univille. Steve had the vague hope that Parker was not, even now, breaking into the Warehouse.

He heard the footsteps first. One set, slow and deliberate, coming up the path through the garden toward the patio.

Turning, he saw Spencer coming toward him, cooler in hand.

“Mind if I join you?”

Steve gestured at an open chair. “It’s all yours. There’s drinks in the fridge if you’d like one.” He was, he admitted to himself, too comfortable to get up.

“I’d be a poor guest if I came empty handed.” Eliot set the cooler down on the table and opened it. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments.

“Where are Parker and Hardison?” Steve asked, wondering because it seemed unusual for them to be apart. He’d seen how close they all were, as if there were invisible, flexible strings that tied them all together.

“They’re getting everything ready to head out tomorrow and then they’ll likely be over.”

Eliot looked over at him with a wry smile. “Hardison is making sure Parker is distracted so she won’t try to find the Warehouse. The last thing she needs is an artifact of her own.”

Steve laughed. The thoughts were so in line with his musings earlier.

“I heard that,” Parker called from the garden as she and Hardison made their way up the path. “I told you I wouldn’t steal anything.”

“Yes, you would,” Steve instinctively replied. Then shook his head ruefully. “Sorry. Can’t help it.”

Parker just grinned cheekily at him.

“Babe, we all know you can’t help yourself. There’s no way we’re letting you in the Warehouse,” Hardison told her, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“But it would be fun,” she said with a sigh, walking over to perch on the table beside Eliot so that her knee pressed into his arm.

“We’d just have to come get it back from you,” Steve reminded her. “All artifacts have a downside.”

Parker cocked her head and looked at him. Steve met her stare and raised an eyebrow at her until she got bored and started digging through the cooler.

Hardison let out a low whistle, looking Steve over. “What changed from the stake-out?”

Steve shrugged. It was a complicated combination of starting to understand these three having reanalyzed their behavior throughout the case, successfully retrieving the artifact, and the mellowing influence of a good drink. He’d also gotten to call Liam after dinner; they’d planned to meet up over the next long weekend.

“Quit pushing; pull up a chair,” Eliot ordered, kicking out the seat next to him for Hardison to take.

“Had to ask.” Hardison made it both a protest and an apology.

Steve just passed him a beer. He was content to sit and watch the three of them bicker. They really were very similar to his team--his family. Tight, with their own language. Having Leverage Inc get involved with a snag, bag, and tag was rather like having the out-laws over for the holidays. Not completely comfortable, but then, life here rarely was.


End file.
